“Today feels like a good day to die”
Wasn’t what I wanted to hear
As I began my second shift of the day.
Seated in the back of an armored Cortina
Unable to control my own destiny.
A wyrd personified fatalism
Clung to D section like a,
Scourge and a torment.
An inevitability informed their behavior.
To lose 9 of your own, seated eating,
Taking respite briefly in the evening
Changes you, it changed them. The loss
The frantic searching in the dark
The bodily mayhem and the baying crowds.
So they set themselves apart,
The rest of us often observers
Unable to intervene in their
Professional dementia, where
Lines were crossed. Irrationality pervaded
How they viewed the world
Outside the station gates.
There, at that time, the ‘Troubles’
Felt very much like a war, a bloody
Gruesome unforgiving unacknowledged
War right here at home.